Tales from the ME Universe
by 1991Kira
Summary: Collection of funny one-shots dealing with various ME characters. Just a place to dump all the odd ideas that keep cropping up in my head.
1. Tales from the Citadel - 1

"Commander, good to see you! Anything I can do for ya?"

"Just passing through, Bailey," Shepard smiled at the C-Sec captain.

"Glad to hear it," Bailey grunted. "Say, Commander. . . is Garrus Vakarian still on your crew?"

"He's a _permanent_ member of my crew, Captain," Shepard grinned. "Why, something you need?"

"Nah! Just . . ." Bailey licked his lips nervously. "He hasn't said anything about coming back to C-Sec, has he?"

"No, he hasn't. Why?"

"Thank God for that!" Bailey gave a sigh of relief.

Shepard frowned. "Don't you think that's a little extreme, Captain?"

"Not for those of us who actually worked with the man," he grinned at her. "Most people were glad to see his back, I tell ya." He peered at her suspiciously. "I'm guessing he never told you about the real reason he left, did he?"

"Garrus said he was tired of all the red-tape and bureaucracy," Shepard said a little defensively.

"Said that, did he?" Bailey grunted. "Yeah, that's probably half the reason. The other half is that Vakarian was one hell of a loose cannon."

"I'll admit he can be a little passionate about justice. . . ."

"' _Passionate'_?" he snorted. "Yeah, right! You got a knack for understating things, I tell ya Commander." He shook his head. "The things he did in the name of ' _justice_ '. . . ."

"What _did_ he do, exactly?" Shepard's curiosity was piqued now.

"Well," Bailey leaned back in his chair. "There was this one time. . ."

* * *

 _Armando-Owen Bailey was having a really bad day._

 _In his defense, there were hardly any good days of working for C-Sec. Every single day involved dealing with red-sand dealers, organ traffickers. . . the worst that the galaxy had to offer._

 _It was enough to drive a man to drink sometimes._

 _When Executor Pallin had specially called for him, he'd actually been rather excited. It wasn't very often that the head of C-Sec dealt directly with human officers. He'd thought today was actually going to be one of the good ones._

 _Until he saw what he was being asked to deal with. . . ._

 _ **Clowns!**_ _The goddamn idiots upstairs wanted him to act as a consultant on dealing with_ _ **clowns**_ _, of all the damn things!_

 _Apparently, some idiot calling himself the 'Joker' had managed to hack into Councillor Sparatus' private files, and made off with terabytes of confidential data. He'd copied the files onto several encrypted OSDs and hidden them somewhere._

 _The officers assigned to retrieve the Councillors precious data ('Confidential' my ass! More likely it's his goddamn porn collection!) were all turians, and as such had no idea on how to deal with the strange human with green hair, white face paint and blood red lips._

 _After assuring them that the face paint most certainly did_ _ **not**_ _mean that the human was a great warrior of some clan (Turians! Really!), Bailey had left to deal with_ _ **another**_ _clown that had been picked up for drunken disorderly at a kid's birthday party._

' _Dammit, who even_ _ **hires**_ _clowns these days?'_

" _So," Bailey drawled as he entered the room, reading his file. "Wiggles, the clown. Drunken disorderly at a children's party. . . nice. What d'you have to say for yourself?"_

" _ **Evening** , officer."_

 _Bailey chanced a glance at the clown, and quickly did a double-take._

" _Hi," he drawled. "You wanna know how I got these scars?"_

 _This wasn't Wiggles. This was the Joker! How did_ _ **he**_ _get in here?_

' _Wait a sec! If he's_ _ **here**_ _, then that means. . .'_

" _Oh shit!" Bailey bolted from the room. He ran over to the other end of the academy and asked about the other clown they'd brought in._

" _Oh, him!" the turian officer at the desk said. "He's in Room 4B. The interrogation's already started."_

" _Who's handling it?" a nervous Bailey asked._

" _Garrus Vakarian."_

 _Oh shit!_

* * *

 _Wiggles the clown was having a really bad day._

 _In his defense, there were hardly any good days while working as a clown at kid's birthday parties. Every single day involved dealing with snot-nosed brats, overprotective parents. . . the worst that the galaxy had to offer._

 _It was enough to drive a man to drink sometimes._

 _He'd had a really bad case of nerves that morning, so he'd taken a little 'liquid courage' before his shift.  
_

 _Next thing he knew he was being hauled away in handcuffs by a pair of disgruntled turians, and tossed unceremoniously into a dark room._

 _Now as he sat there in the darkness, he wondered whether it was time to cut his losses and move back to his mother's farm on Earth._

 _His musings were cut short as the light in the room suddenly came to life and a strong hand slammed his head into the table._

" _Ohh. . ." He moaned. "Oh, my head. . . Ahhhh, everything's so fuzzy."_

 _He barely had any time to recover before a three-fingered fist punched his hand._

" _Owwww!" He looked at his assailant, a tall turian in C-Sec uniform, wearing a blue visor on his left eye. "Who punches a hand?" he demanded indignantly._

" _You wanted me. Here I am," the turian growled in a menacing voice._

" _I didn't **want** you. I don't even know who you are!"_

" _Where's the data?"_

" _I don't know what data you're talking about!" He continued to massage his hand. "I think you broke my balloon. . ."_

" _You're garbage who kills for money!" the officer snarled._

" _No, I'm Wiggles," he corrected him. "Garbage is the other clown who works the other end of the Citadel. . ."_

 _He'd barely finished talking when the turian sprang forward and grabbed him by the collar, effortlessly lifting him into the air._

" _Where're the data pads?"_

" _I don't know about any data pads!" he said desperately. "I was hired by Leo Barner for his son's birthday party. I do close up magic. . . aagh!"_

 _He screamed in pain as the turian slammed him against the nearby wall. "I have_ _ **one**_ _rule," he growled, practically nose-to-nose with the clown._

" _I'm so sorry I broke your rule, Officer!" Wiggles said fearfully. "All I drank was two beers and some cooking sherry."_

" _Which is?" the turian pressed._

" _Fortified wine and. . . aaaaaaaah!"_

 _Bailey saw the clown scream in pain as he was bodily thrown to the other side of the room. He dashed to the door, but found that Vakarian had locked it tight with his own encryptions. He swore loudly. "Someone get this door open!" he bellowed over his shoulder._

 _In the interrogation chamber, he watched the turian officer slam the suspect's head against the one-way mirror._

" _Where are they?" he bellowed at the terrified clown at his feet._

" _What?" Wiggles asked desperately, receiving another punch for his trouble._

" _Where are they?"_

" _My God!_ _ **What**_ _?" he whimpered. The turian struck him again._

" _Where_ _ **are**_ _they?"_

" _I got drunk at a birthday party! I'm so sorry!" he screamed desperately, getting another punch, just as Bailey and another officer burst into the room._

" _Vakarian, stop! Stop, Stop!" He took a deep breath. "That's not the Joker! It's a birthday clown!"_

 _Garrus flicked his mandibles thoughtfully, then punched the clown again._

" _You can stop punching him in the face, now" Bailey said exasperatedly._

" _Really?" Garrus asked him._

" _Really! Look at him. He's not the Joker. He's a birthday clown."_

" _My translator can't really tell the difference," Garrus stated._

 _Bailey pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Just take my word for it, all right. That's **not**_ _your_ _suspect."_

 _Garrus scratched his mandible, looking down thoughtfully at the clown. The poor human had started weeping by now, and judging from the puddle beneath him, had wet himself as well._

" _Two clowns?" he asked Bailey, who simply nodded._

" _Full disclosure: part of me knew that." The turian looked sheepish. "Yeah. It was embarrassing to stop, so. . . how do you say it. . . 'I just kinda owned it', yeah."_

 _Garrus glanced once again at Wiggles, who was still sobbing pathetically on the floor. "I gave you the beating. . . not the one that you deserved, but the one that you needed." He nodded to himself, seemingly pleased by the wisdom of his own words._

 _Bailey face-palmed._

* * *

"Huh. . . interesting." Shepard muttered.

"Tell me about it," Bailey agreed.

* * *

 **AN: This is inspired from a CollegeHumor video titled: 'Batman Interrogation'. Do check it out on youtube guys :)  
**


	2. Tales from the Citadel - 2

"Advisor Vakarian, glad you could stop by."

"It's still Garrus to you, _Commander_ Bailey," he grinned at the older human. "Your message said it was urgent."

Bailey grunted and motioned him over to his desk. "Not that urgent, I'm afraid. Just wanted to show this to you in person before you heard from someone else."

"What's the matter?" Garrus asked curiously.

"There was an. . . ah, incident at the Presidium this morning involving the Councillors and Commander Shepard."

Garrus blanched. Shepard had been in a rather foul mood lately. Between the war effort, the recent Cerberus coup attempt and her increasing frustration with the leaders of the various species, it was a miracle she hadn't snapped and killed anyone yet.

 _Or had she?_ Something about Bailey's tone seemed wrong to him.

"Did anyone get hurt?" he asked cautiously.

"Hmmm?" Bailey seemed oddly distracted, scratching his chin. "Not really. . . well, I don't know how to tell you this. Easier to just show you, I guess."

He fired up his console. "We pieced this together using security footage from the Presidium. See for yourself."

Garrus watched with some trepidation as the video began to play.

* * *

The video showed the Presidium looking as peaceful as ever. The keepers had long since gotten rid of all the debris from the recent Cerberus attack, and the whole place looked exactly as Garrus remembered it.

Suddenly, an explosion blew apart the walls of the former human embassy.

Garrus watched as the smoke cleared to reveal the asari Councillor Tevos glowing blue with biotics, stumbling out of the ruins of the embassy, a terrified expression on her usually calm face. Hot on her heels, desperately holding onto his hood, was the salarian Councillor Valern. The turian Councillor Sparatus was a few feet behind him, looking more haggard than Garrus had ever seen him, his expensive suit torn in places.

Garrus saw him shoot a look of pure horror behind himself as he and the other two Councillors raced across the Presidium. Behind them, their pursuer finally came into view.

Garrus shut his eyes tight and opened them again to make sure they were working properly.

Chasing after the Councillors was a krogan, a very _familiar_ krogan, wielding a Claymore shotgun and firing concussive rounds one after the other at their retreating backs. But that wasn't what caught his attention. Riding piggyback on the krogan's hump was none other than the _extremely familiar_ figure of Commander Shepard.

Like a train wreck, Garrus watched as Shepard, wielding a Cobra Missile launcher, hurled obscenities at the three Councillors as they fled across the Presidium.

" _For the last time, Commander, we're sorry!" shrieked Sparatus, as a concussive round barely clipped him on the shoulder. "We're sorry for not believing you about the Reapers! We really are!"_

" _You're_ _ **sorry!**_ _?_ _ **You're**_ _sorry? You_ _ **air-quoted**_ _me, you bastard!" Shepard screamed in fury. "No one air-quotes me and lives!"_

" _Eat them, Grunt!" she bellowed at the krogan. "Eat them_ _ **all**_ _!"_

" _Yes, battlemaster!" the young krogan agreed and charged forth. "_ _ **I. . am. . Krogan!**_ _"_

" _A_ _ **hungry**_ _krogan!" Shepard added with an evil smirk._

* * *

Garrus continued to stare in shock as the recording ended. He then slowly turned to a stoic looking Bailey standing next to him.

"Is this. . . ?" he asked hesitantly.

"It's real," Bailey said.

"Are you. . .?"

"I'm positive."

"This isn't. . . ?"

"Nope, it's not a prank."

He clicked his mandibles thoughtfully. "I don't suppose. . . ."

"Too late. Some of the tech boys already uploaded it to the extranet. Sorry."

Garrus swore loudly.


End file.
